


and like a thunderbolt

by TolkienGirl



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I love Peter Parker a lot OK, Light Angst, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 05:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11525757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: He falls. - The Eagle (Tennyson)Peter relearns his life.





	and like a thunderbolt

The craziest thing is how fast everything goes back to normal.

He heals up. He thinks about turning down Tony Stark, and even though it was a test, he feels that crawling question— _what if_. He sleeps late, misses his alarm. He thinks, _I could have been an Avenger_. He knows he made the right choice…

Even if it’s a choice he has to keep making.

 

Of course, the conversation with Aunt May is anything but normal.

She is not chill about it. Which, hey, even if he is a lunkhead teenager—a former math teacher’s favorite expression—he understands. You don’t want to hear how the orphaned nephew you’ve been taking care of for years has been webslinging off into the night, cornering crooks and occasionally trying to glue ferries back together.

She grounds him for two weeks, and he actually takes two weeks off from crime-fighting, because he figures she needs some time.

 

Michelle—MJ, they’ve all started calling her MJ—has her chin propped on her hand, and she’s staring right at him. Eyes wide, wondering.

He says, “What?”

She huffs a quick laugh, then says, “Oh? Did you think I was looking at you? No. Bruh, you’ve got a huge ant climbing on your collar.”

He thinks, _hey_ , _at least it’s not a spider_. Because talk about been there, done that.

 

Aunt May comes around. “I can’t stop you,” she says. “It isn’t my place.” She has tears in her eyes, and suddenly, so does he.

 

It’s the same, the same classes, and jumping from rooftop to rooftop with air in his lungs. It is and it isn’t. Normal doesn’t mean you have to forget.

And maybe that’s why sometimes he still feels the weight of concrete, dust in his eyes, fear and fire. Sometimes he feels alone, even though he turned down the world for his friends.

 _It was a test_ , he reminds himself. _You weren’t going to have the world_.

He can’t have the world, but he can swing over top of it by night, watching the lights blink blearily, hearing his heart beat, saving what he can save.

 

English keeps kicking him down. Science is second nature, math is fine. He just doesn’t have time to write papers.

MJ wears perfume one Tuesday. She denies it, when Ned says something, but Peter can’t stop thinking about it.

 

“Do I machine wash this?” Aunt May, taking a sniff. “You need to wash it at some point.”

He maybe needs stiches on his shoulder—he got a pretty good gash, more than just his typical bruising—but he isn’t going to tell her that. She’s new at this. (She isn’t new at taking care of him, but he doesn’t want to be a burden.)

“No, it has a cleaning technology—uh, embedded in it. I’ll have Ned figure it out.”

“ _Ned_ knows?”

And there she goes again.

He deserves it.

 

Sometimes he thumbs his screen, staring at Tony Stark’s number. But he doesn’t text Happy every day, anymore, and he doesn’t think calling Iron Man is just something you should do when you’re bored.

So mostly, he leaves it alone. And mostly, he keeps breathing, air in his lungs, world underneath him, taking his leaps of faith.

It’s a choice he has to keep making.


End file.
